I wrote about how the narratives society placed on my disabled body made it feel like it wasn't mine, and how finding my queerness reconnected me to it This is a really vulnerable piece. I hope you'll read it lucywebster.substack.com/p/finding-a-...

Despite accepting my disability, for a long time I saw my body as separate from who I am. Then something changed lucywebster.substack.com/p/finding-a-...

We do love to treat disabled people like children

"That’s a delivery driver who has not yet had the car crash that will paralyse him, a trainee teacher who’ll go on to get a bipolar diagnosis, a nurse who’s just caught that bad cough that will sadly develop into long Covid." You simply don't know if you're going to be affected by this brutal cut

Vital reporting from @francesryan.bsky.social Determining whether a condition is lifelong/not going to change is notoriously difficult and there is *no way* DWP assessors are going to get it right www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A law professor told me on background that depending on jurisdiction, witholding medicine may not count as as disability discrimination. I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around that when I see stories like this.

I have glasses now Why do they feel blurry?!

Also really sick of the idea that opponents of the assisted suicide bill want dying people to suffer. Of course we don't! We just want ways to help them suffer less that don't put other vulnerable people at risk. Multiple things can be true at once!

I'm sorry but some people on the left really do tell on themselves and their attitudes to disability when they talk about assisted dying. Bloody hell

I always feel a bit guilty when my friends go to protests and I stay on my sofa but then I remember that resistance needs all of our skills and we all have different roles to play I wrote about different, accessible ways to help here lucywebster.substack.com/p/pride-and-...

I had a really useful conversation with one of my editors today in which I realised that there's so many disability related phenomena I don't pitch essays about because I assume people know about them or they're not that different from the nondisabled experience, and that those assumptions are wrong

Well, I’m sure this will cause a lot of people to pause and reflect and apologise for sa…hahaha no can’t finish the sentence, they are going to double down and say the police were too woke to prosecute aren’t they

Proud of all the disability campaigners who made their voices heard to keep our community safe I hope one day we can have a well-drafted, safe law that eases suffering at the end of life without putting disabled and other vulnerable people at risk www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Are the Tories just performing an elaborate parody now

In unbelievable news I have become a person who looks forward to going to the physio

I deleted my post on assisted dying polling because I worded it badly - apologies What I should have said was: headline polling does show support for the bill. But it obscures the fact that even supporters have caveats that aren't reflected in the bill

ah yes the ever-popular 'let teenagers get cancer' vote winner

The new @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social book has arrived in the post meaning it is officially a Good Day

lmao

Have been living with physical fatigue from cp since my mid 20s but now I'm 31 and the cognitive fatigue is setting in and I'm miffed

I really need to stop coming up with half baked book ideas and actually turn one of them into a proposal. What is wrong with me? Strange because I'm usually better at following through on an idea than having a new one

Robert Jenrick calling Palm Sunday 'Psalm Sunday' reminds us once again that dim witted rage baiting populists never know the slightest thing about what they are purporting to defend.

Turns out I need glasses. Went to Specsavers and the lady who helped me was so normal about asking if I'd be able to push them back if they slipped down (I have limited use of my hands). We had a nice chat So often people are pleasant but awkward with me. I really notice when they're just relaxed

It really is the point. If a Conservative front bencher is allowed to make a discriminatory Islamophobic argument like this without sanction from his party - indeed with support from its leadership - that represents a major erosion of anti-prejudice norms and indeed of religious freedom norms.

Get yourself some disabled friends who join in on all your madcap schemes

Utterly the wrong call. Step by step, this embroils us in an immoral, illegal, illogical war.

Assisted dying campaigners want you to believe that the options are this bill or unmitigated suffering That just isn't true. So much else can be done: better palliative and social care, higher benefit levels and, eventually, a safe law drafted by experts that protects vulnerable people

If you are pro assisted dying, don't blame the Lords for blocking a dangerous and poorly drafted bill. Blame Starmer for trying to make a huge, life-and-death change to society via a bill written by a backbencher

!!!

The relief!!!

The United Nations is also against what’s happening on assisted dying in Canada. It’s an extremely dangerous time for clinically vulnerable and disabled with no help on COViD as it is. We should not be putting through a poorly written bill with too many legal loopholes. It’s been rushed by MPs.

As care and funds and access to treatment are cut, the fallout doesn't just affect us. We watch our loved ones give up careers to provide care, watch our lives shrink as the cost of disability takes more and more from our families, see the weight of worry and work. 5/

We are supposed to try to save people in these situations. 2 - linked to this, abusive partners tired of the work of care are given an out 'everyone' would understand. 3 - but the real coercion we're talking about is society-wide and can't be easily accounted for in vetting. 4/

When we talk about the risk of coercion, there are three threads: 1 - disabled people, especially disabled women, are significantly more likely to be in abusive relationships, often with their carer. As support and care are cut and shelter services remain inaccessible, escape becomes harder. 5/

I spoke with STV news today about the Assisted Dying Bill in Holyrood. Obviously, I had a lot more to say than they could fit in, so let me say it here. (I have limited replies because, of everything I'm involved in, this is the topic I hate the most. I am laying out my position, not debating) 1/

Unless a perspective government bill is dramatically different from the current one, this headline should read "100 Labour MPs urge PM to put disabled people's lives at risk"

The bbc loves to show people who oppose assisted suicide because of their religious beliefs. Feels in bad faith (pardon the pun) when the majority of opponents are opposed on human rights and equality grounds

Haven't really commented on the Scottish assisted dying bill because I'm trying to limit the number of battles I fight at once but I really, really hope it fails

No they're not. They're trying to stop a badly designed bill from putting vulnerable people at risk

In a very me sequence of events the neurophysio I've started seeing read my book and offered me a consulting job so I guess I do that now too

Badenoch said if she was prime minister HMS Dragon would have left a week ago. Presumably with its doors hanging off and with no weapons onboard.

I can't bring myself to believe that the assisted dying bill is actually going to fail. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop

That's a quote for the ages

I did a version of this for my first book launch and I have no regrets

Happy International Women's Day! I wrote my book, The View From Down Here, about the specific experience of being a disabled woman because so often our existence is seen as a contradiction

Racism racism racism

Most pollsters will now show you Labour losing more to the left than right. These are not, despite what some say, ‘metro libs’ in safe seats - they’re spread out in electoral battlegrounds all over the country. Labour’s 2024 victory was partly built on them, esp in Blue Wall.

Do I have enough jobs?

Baffled by the war hunger on Newsnight from both Gillian Keegan and, seemingly, the journalists

An incoming Labour Prime Minister’s own vote share falling by 17% in a London seat during a landslide win is actually totally normal